7+ Strategic Solutions To Keep Your Business Floating During Covid-19 Crisis

The spread of COVID-19 is increasing rapidly across the world, along with new updates flying high every minute. As the scenario is becoming worse day by day, many company owners are unsure of the things to consider mitigating risk, support customers, protect their employees, and keep up their balance in revenue.

So… what should a company owner do? Panic, huh? Nah. Plan? Yes.

To protect your company and staff in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak, you need to be prepared to take some precautionary steps and of course do a lot of hand washing in the process.

Let us move ahead and know about some of the common work from home challenges faced by business owners and the strategies, to be followed.

Taking Actions and Moving Ahead

Problem: Situation like the one which we are currently experiencing needs a lot of thinking and proper strategy. With such high stakes on the table, company owners find themselves struggling with “thought paralysis” or being unable to decide because of overthinking.

Delaying decisions will only lead to more problems — and more decisions need to be thought of to fix those problems.

Solution – Create A Plan: As the spread of Coronavirus continues, more organizations are planning out their policies, rules, and regulations to protect their businesses and employees. One key precaution many business owners make is to create or revamp an emergency preparedness plan. If you have not built a strategy yet, employers, it is high time to giddy up!

An emergency plan should get drafted which not only outlines the steps your company should take if an outbreak impacts your business. But it should also include the measures you ought to take for protecting your employees and business before disaster strikes.

Try adding up the below-mentioned things in your plan –

● Take measures to keep your employees safe.
● How to manage if an outbreak affects your business?
● Things employees must do and follow in case of any Pandemic (like now).
● What will happen to your business operations if it gets infected?

Employee Engagement & Productivity

To stop the spread of Coronavirus, the Government has asked people to stay at home. The private officials asked to work from home, while the government employees are to attend the office on alternate weeks, as well as with staggering timings.

Problem: Considering the government notice, most of the companies have shifted their employees to work remotely (from their homes). But it is highly difficult for employers to manage the employee productivity levels, because of which they can see a quick downfall in a company’s overall growth.

Solution – Implement Remote Work Monitoring, If Possible: If you have not implemented workplace monitoring software in your company, now it’s the best time to do so. With widespread COVID-19 spreading at the accelerated pace, company owners are looking for alternatives to keep up their employees from working conventionally and adopting remote work culture.

You might have tested waters before allowing your employees to work from home. Or, it might be a whole new ballgame for your business. Thus, in that case, implementing a remote employee monitoring software will help you the best. I believe it is always a scope of improvement and room for better performance with the use of monitoring software.

Some of the key benefits of monitoring include –

● Enhance employee productivity
● Save and secure confidential information
● Avoid issues related to a data breach
● Check employees productive and non-productive hours
● Leverage Remote workforce
● Verify Identities
● Quick & Easy Attendance Management, and many more…

So, these are few of the benefits of employee monitoring, try implementing the best software like EmpMonitor, Teramind, etc. and keep up the overall business process smooth and tuned.

Remote Workers Feel Left Out

Problem: As per the recent survey, most of the employees stated that they feel left out due to the shift to a remote workforce. Though it does not mean that the office teams or colleagues are mistreating them.

But the fact is on-site workers do not grasp the remote interaction and do not know its behavioral consequences, which unfortunately leads to breakdown.

Solution – Inform Your Customers About Updates: Nobody likes to be pushed aside from the loop, particularly when any pandemic like the Coronavirus strikes. You must, must, must, must interact with your clients (customers) when it comes to protecting your company, and keep aware of the scenario along with the company updates.

One of the best ways to keep your customers involved is through social media. Social media has made it easier for customers to lend a helping hand for brands who want to interact along.
Whether it is sharing queries, singing praises, or voicing constructive criticism, customers now have a direct channel to give feedback to brands, and similar business owners can share their opinions and company feed.
But, is it easy for you to manage all your social media activities along with the other ongoing tasks? It might be difficult is not it? The solution, use of social media management software.

Beneficial Impact of using social media management software –

● Manage Multiple Social Pages
● Easy customer relationship management
● Streamline Team Collaboration
● Increase Social Accountability
● Schedule posts ahead of time
● Analyze your engagements and many more…

There is various social media management software like Socinator, Social Captain, eClincher, etc., which help in quick and easy management of social media presence.

Advertising Trends and Strategies

Problem: If you are not getting desired results from business advertising in your company, then it is high time to reconsider your techniques. The marketing landscape is continually changing, and in the current scenario things might not work as they use to in the past times.

As there are no one advertising strategies, hence, you need to keep a list of marketing ideas which would benefit your business in the best possible way.

Solution – Keep A Check on Competitor Strategies: Apart from the direct health concerns, Coronavirus will not end without leaving its impact on long-term economic and business consequences. Hence, to overcome the situation, business owners are taking different measures to keep up economic strategies.

Growing the economy rate means building business strategies that are not just average. It requires the ones which are innovative and highly successful. It can be done by checking out the marketing strategies which are trending in your niche.

One of the best and simplest ways to do so is with the use of ad intelligence software like PowerAdSpy, AdPlexity, etc. Some of the advantages of using these tools include-

● Easy and quick data search
● Spying on your competitor’s strategies
● Data Analyzation
● Data Filtering
● Effective social media marketing, etc.

Revenue Growth Graph Declining

Problem: The Corporate sector is seeing a drastic revenue growth graph sliding down and the amount of profitability is narrowing down the margins, due to this pandemic.

Companies losing out on new deals, which will jeopardize future revenues, as well as reversals on existing ones. It renegotiated as their overseas customers are facing lockdown difficulties.

Solution – Take Advantage of Federal Relief: In the corporate world and economy, the coronavirus is making a big dent. But there is no need to panic because relief for mid & small-scale businesses is on the way! The government is working to pass legislation to aid mid & small-level businesses and individuals negatively affected by the virus. It includes some of these things –

● Federal disaster loans with low interest
● A tax credit to employers
● Deferred federal income tax

Companies can apply for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan to help cover expenses that companies are unable to afford because of the virus. It includes payroll expenses, payable accounts, and fixed debts.

Choose What to Sell

Problem: If you only knew what goods and services to market, you might make a mint. But choosing the related niche can be a daunting task.

Solution: Admit that identifying productive niches are difficult and delegate the role to someone strong in this region. For this, you do not have to invest a lot of money or associate with an expensive marketing firm. Instead, recruit a freelance researcher who has experience relating to your field (e-commerce retail, service, publishing, etc.).

Make them have a deep market analysis and create a detailed report along with the related niches, with the profit margins and in-depth analysis.

It doesn’t mean you have to hire someone to decide your strategies, if you have enough knowledge about identifying the niches, it’s great to put your best foot front and draft out the strategies which best suit your business. It also helps in saving tons of money, time, and many others.

Strapped Budget

Problem: Even if the flow of cash is going well, you probably would never have enough in your budget to market your company to its full potential.

Solution – Plan Your Budget Beforehand: Unless you are one of the top leading brands, every businessman struggles with his/her budget. One of the best ways to prioritize your work efficiency and marketing efforts – spend your money where it works – keep aside the operating expenses and then experiment along with the marketing methods.

Keep an eye on your finances too: there are possibilities, there are places you can skim to free up more money. Cut it down unless a cost is critical to your business and/or represents an investment with an expected return. See how lean you can run your firm. You do not really have to but cut all you can and see if you really believe like you can run your company.

Cash Flow Management

Problem: Cash flow is vital to the survival of businesses, yet many entrepreneurs struggle to pay bills (let alone themselves) while waiting for checks to arrive. Various problems arise which include delayed invoicing, etc. For example, if you complete the job and submit an invoice but get the revenue after 30days. In the meantime, you must pay for everything starting from the employee pay, contractors’ mortgage, etc.

Solution – Proper Planning and Budgeting: Having proper planning and budgeting required for proper budgeting, but at times, it also does not help you in pulling you out from the problems. One of the easiest ways to smoothen the cash flowing process is through getting a down payment for your services and products. The down payment should include all the related expenses associated with the project, or sale, or profit.

Second, the best way is to create a good bond with your vendors or be good customers, as it will help you in getting a chance to have proper cash flow management by asking your own suppliers to invoice you within 45, 60 or even 90 days to allow enough time to arrive for your payments and checks to be valid.

If you are looking for much simpler ways, then transfer money using the online money transfer applications.

Conclusion

The coronavirus has had unprecedented worldwide impacts — and the worst is yet to come. Managing your business in this pandemic situation is much more than giving your business a good scrubbing. In simple terms, it means keeping your business and employees well-informed and war-ready for any worst-case to face.

Companies must act now if they want to bounce back into the future. Following some of the above-mentioned practices will help the world as a whole recover — and in the end, we hope, things become more resilient. As, whatever the scenario is, however worst it can be, pull up your socks my business leaders, and win against this widespread!